


Forget Me Not

by K_K_TiBal



Category: Supernatural
Genre: BUT JUST SO WE'RE ALL CLEAR CAS IS ALREADY DEAD WHEN THIS FIC STARTS, Castiel is a Ghost, Dean interacts with Cas as a ghost, Florist Dean, Ghost Castiel, I'M TAGGING THIS WITH MCD JUST IN CASE, Just So We're Clear, This is, ghost!cas, he is dead already, like twenty years dead, okay, okay listen up, so he's already dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 07:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5326154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_K_TiBal/pseuds/K_K_TiBal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean gets a little more than he bargains for when he accidentally buys a haunted flower shop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forget Me Not

“Alright. Here are the keys, and uh… before you go, you should know that this place is haunted. But no worries. He seems friendly.”

Dean paused for a moment before laughing as he accepted the shiny new key to his new shop. “Right. Haunted. Got it.”

Benny, the previous owner of what was currently a small tattoo parlor, raised an eyebrow seriously. “It’s true. He’s been here for years, as far as I can tell. Messes with the lights sometimes. Pretty harmless, though.”

Dean chuckled and nodded his head at the old shop owner. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.”

“What was it that you’re planning on doing to this place again?”

Dean flushed a little and cleared his throat. “Flower shop. I sell flowers.”

Benny grunted. “Best of luck to you. Say bye to Cas for me.”

“Cas?”

“The ghost. That’s his name.”

Dean eyed Benny warily, his smile fading a little. “Alright. If I see him-- _Cas_ \--I’ll tell him.”

And with one last wave, Benny was gone, along with all talk of the paranormal.

The lights flickered.

***

Dean got to work moving all of his supplies into his new shop, “Petal to the Metal”. He installed a few more shelves on the walls to hold some of his potted plants, and brought in his cases for the flowers that he would be bringing in soon.

Getting this shop up was his top priority at the moment, and he needed everything to be perfect. He was, however, slightly concerned about his flowers surviving in a place that seemed to have so many cold spots. Every once in awhile Dean would shuffle past one of his flower cases and shiver at the sudden drop in temperature.

Dean grumbled something about a high electricity bill and cranked up the heat, hoping that it would solve the issue.

It did not.

The next day, Dean had to bring gloves to the shop. Gloves. It was springtime and Dean Winchester was wearing gloves. He fiddled with the heater some more and even checked the wiring, but everything was exactly how it should be.

Finally, Dean couldn’t stall the flowers any longer. He had a truckload that needed to be brought in, so whether or not the thermostat was working, the cargo needed to be unloaded. A door would just have to be propped open at all times or something.

As it turned out, Dean’s precautions weren’t needed, seeing as the cold temperatures disappeared the moment the flowers started piling into the store. The flowers were greeted with warm air and accurate humidity, to both his relief and surprise.

The rest of the day was spent arranging the colorful plants into different bunches for the next day. If he could get everything looking nice and ready to sell that night, then he could open up in the morning and he definitely wanted to get this show on the road.

The sun dipped below the horizon as Dean tied a bow on one of his last arrangements. A movement in his peripheral vision made him look up and notice the outline of a man staring out the glass windows.

How had he gotten in here?

“Hey, buddy. We’re not open yet. Still closed, so if you could just--”

“Where is Benny? And the tattoo parlor?”

Dean blinked. Maybe this guy was a friend of Benny’s that hadn’t been told he’d closed up shop? There was something eerie about his voice that unsettled Dean.

“Benny left a few days ago. I’m here now.”

The man continued to stare out the window. “And you sell flowers?”

“Uh, yeah.”

The man turned around slowly and tilted his head as he looked at Dean, studying him intently. “Good. I didn’t like Benny. I hope you’re better.”

The man let a small smile crawl across his face before he faded into nothing.

Dean let out a string of curse words as he nearly fell off the chair in shock. The guy had most  _definitely_ been there just a few seconds before and had vanished in front of his eyes. Dean set his floral arrangement aside and stood up.

“Hello?” he called, hoping for some sort of explanation.

Not even the flowers rustled in response.

***

Despite the strange encounter the night before, Dean opened up shop the next morning. Other than a few curious people that wandered in from the streets, it wasn’t a particularly busy day. Not that Dean expected it to be. Word needed to travel before he’d get much business.

Dean kept glancing over to where he’d seen the strange figure from before, but nothing ever appeared there again.

It wasn’t until he was counting the till and untying his apron that anything strange started happening. The sound of buzzing filled his ears and Dean swiped at an insect that wasn’t there. No matter how hard he swatted at the air around him, he couldn’t get the sound to go away, not to mention that he couldn’t even  _see_ the source of the buzzing.

A shiver went down his spine at the sudden chill that had filled the air.

“Sorry about that. Sometimes I get carried away.”

Dean spun around and banged his elbow against the counter when he heard a voice just to his left.

“ _Fucking hell,”_  Dean hissed, rubbing at his bruised elbow and staring at the man that hadn’t been there a few seconds before. “Who are you, man? You--you can’t be in here! I’m closed.”

The man raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “My name is Castiel and trust me, if I could leave this place, I would.”

Casti-- oh,  _hell_  no.

“ _You’re_  Cas?” Dean asked in disbelief.

Cas’s expression darkened briefly. “That’s what Benny called me, yes. What’s your name?”

Dean stood frozen for a few moments, then quickly darted his hand out into Castiel’s chest and gasped at the cold sensation that engulfed him as his hand passed right on through.

“You’re a--”

“Ghost, correct.” Castiel still looked very unimpressed with the entire situation. “A being that cannot pass on to the other realm and is stuck, forced to wander this miserable coil of mortal existence. Name?”

Dean stared with his mouth gaping, attempting to process what was happening. If Dean were to ever meet a ghost, he’d always pictured it to be like in those terrible horror movies. Some ghost with a revenge complex that looked half dead. He hadn’t been expecting a vaguely grumpy (and fairly attractive) tax-accountant looking man. Castiel seemed relatively normal.

You know. For being dead.

“Dean. So. What are you doing in my flower shop?”

Castiel sighed and looked over the counter at all of the bright floral arrangements that were neatly set up in rows. “This used to be  _The Novak Book Emporium_. My sister owned it way back when.”

Interesting. Benny hadn’t mentioned any bookstore that used to be there.  

“How long ago?” Dean asked, leaning against the counter warily. He still wasn’t totally sure how to handle this situation, but figured he might as well get as much information as possible while he could.

“I don’t know. Time is different for me. What year is it?”

Castiel grimaced when Dean told him the number. “Nineteen years. I died nineteen years ago.”

Dean waited awkwardly while Cas continued to ponder in silence.

“Uh, I’m sorry for...your own loss?”

Castiel gave him an exasperated look. “I’m no longer in the mood to talk. Goodbye, Dean.”

And the next thing he knew, Dean was standing alone in his flower shop again, the cold air vanishing along with the apparition.

“What the hell is my life?” he muttered.

***

Dean didn’t see Castiel for over a week and he was beginning to think he wasn’t going to again. The lights flickered every once in awhile and Dean would walk through random cold spots on a daily basis, but so far, no more signs of the grumpy ghost.

His sales went up that week when he started setting out his best-looking arrangements on the window display and setting out a white tablecloth to contrast the colors. Quite a few people bought a single flower while others purchased the expensive bouquets. Dean had a woman purchase five similar arrangements for what he was fairly sure was a last minute wedding ceremony, and was now creating more to restock for the next day.

A rose here. A daisy there. Garnish with Baby’s breath.

“You should use more sunflowers.”

Dean nearly jumped out of his skin, at the sound of the deep, familiar voice right behind him. Dean glanced over and sure enough, the trenchcoat-clad ghost of his was frowning at the flowers on the counter in front of him. “Cas, you can’t keep doing that, okay? Ring a bell or something.”

He shivered when Castiel leaned over his shoulder to stare at the flowers, cold air following in his wake.

“Lavender. You should do sunflowers and lavender. My bees used to love those.”

“Your  _bees?_ ” Dean scooted his chair further away from Castiel, not wanting to have to put on a sweater or something.

The ghost nodded solemnly. “In my past life, I was a Melittologist.”

Dean stared, causing Castiel to roll his eyes.

“I was a bee scientist.”

“Ah.” Dean glanced over at his small bundle of sunflowers and picked a few out just to appease the guy. He didn’t want to piss him off and accidentally evoke the wrath of a ghost. “So are you planning on randomly popping in and out a lot?”

Castiel shrugged. “Depends. Sometimes I can’t control when I appear. I’ve gotten a lot better at it though. When I first died, I wasn’t able to fully appear until after Anna had apparently sold the bookshop. I would have liked to see her again.”

“Anna?”

“My sister,” Castiel said, a hint of sadness to his voice.

Dean grabbed a few stalks of lavender and interspersed them with the sunflowers. “Why can’t you? Go see her?” he asked nonchalantly. Maybe if he got him out of the shop, he’d never come back and Dean wouldn’t have to deal with all this paranormal madness.

“Because no matter how hard I try,” Castiel stepped right through the counter Dean was working on and pressed up against the glass facing towards the street, unable to pass through it, “I am tied to something in this shop, and I can’t leave with it still here. I can’t leave the store and I can’t leave this existence.”

Dean clicked his tongue. “That sucks. Any idea what it is?”

“If I did, I would no longer be here.”

“Valid point.”

He added a little bit of Baby’s Breath to the arrangement and grabbed a white ribbon to tie it all together before holding it out in front of himself to study. “Hey, not bad, Cas. That looks pretty good.”

Castiel cracked a small smile. “I knew it would. I happen to know a little bit about flowers from my time with the bees. Though probably not as much as you.”

Dean chuckled and stood the arrangement up in a vase. “Yeah, probably not.”

Castiel waved his hand and the soft sound of buzzing filled the air. A small bumblebee suddenly appeared next to the new arrangement, hovering around the large petals of the sunflower.

“Sorry,” Castiel murmured. “I miss the bees, sometimes.”

Dean smiled at the small insect and turned back around to tell Cas that it was fine, but the man had already disappeared. “Cas?” he called, looking around.

Looked like their conversation was over.

***

It took a little bit of digging (and by ‘digging’ he meant quick internet searches), but Dean was finally able to find a newspaper article about the death of one Castiel Novak. He’d apparently been hit by a car right outside the store nineteen years ago, right before his sister’s wedding.

Well, shit. That was straight-up depressing.

Anna had apparently sold the store not long after, but another quick search confirmed that she still lived in the area.

 _“I’m just happy to know that my brother is in a better place,”_  Anna was quoted to have said.  _“I hope he’s smiling down on me right now.”_

He was most definitely not.

 

Cas appeared a few more times over the course of the next couple of weeks. If he thought something interesting was happening or if he was just more bored than usual, he could come and start some sort of conversation. Luckily, nothing had happened in front of the customers yet, and Dean was determined to keep it that way.

Mainly, Cas kept Dean company while he opened and closed up shop. Dean learned that the ghost wasn’t as off-putting as he first appeared to be and, so far, Dean had even made him laugh a few times (though it had made the lights flicker dangerously and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that).

Dean whistled as he walked towards the shop one morning. Cas had given him another new idea for an arrangement the day before and Dean was itching to try it out.

He unlocked the door and stopped in his tracks when he saw that all of his precious flowers were covered in a thin layer of frost.

“Cas!’ he called angrily, stomping over to the thermostat just to double check his theory. Yep. They should have had a nice warm night. “Cas, what the hell?”

He waited with a hand on his hip, but Castiel didn’t show.

“Don’t know what I did to deserve this, you know,” Dean muttered and went around to check on each arrangement. There was a chance that they’d be alright, but a good chunk of them would probably be totally unsellable. “There go my profits for today.”

Dean cranked up the heat and it did eventually get warmer inside, but he had to flip the sign to “closed’ for the rest of the day.

It wasn’t until the sun had set, and the flowers that could be salvaged were set aside, that Castiel finally appeared.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, hiding his face in shame. “I didn’t mean to.”

“You didn’t  _mean_  to?” Dean repeated grumpily. “Then what did you  _mean_  to do?”

“Tomorrow is supposed to be Anna’s wedding anniversary.”

Dean froze. “Oh,” he suddenly remembered the date on the newspaper he’d read. “Which means you died today.”

Castiel jerked his head up and looked at Dean strangely. “Yes… how did you know?”

“I, uh, did some research.” Dean licked his lips. Wow. Twenty years. Cas had been dead for twenty years now. “C’mon. Cheer up. We can have like… a death day party. Like in Harry Potter. It can be fun!”

Castiel tilted his head to the side. “Hairy what?”

And that was how Dean became  _so_ affronted at their time difference that he took matters into his own hands, and started to read the damn books to him.

Every day he allotted an hour to reading the books aloud to Castiel. Sometimes he’d make an appearance, and sometimes he wouldn’t, but when he was there, Dean got to watch him experience this whole world that everyone else already had.

Cas had a particular fascination with the ghost characters.

They continued the tradition over the course of the next few months. Dean’s flower shop flourished, and Castiel even had a good time scaring away some teenagers that tried to graffiti his windows one night.

Dean was sure it was something he learned from Peeves.

“Are you alone, Dean?” Cas interrupted his reading one night during the sixth book.

Dean squinted. “Yeah. I mean, besides you.”

“No, I mean, alone. You never talk about anyone else.”

Dean scratched at his head and shrugged. “I… guess. My parents passed away a while back and my brother’s a big shot lawyer in California. He calls every once in awhile.”

“So you’re alone.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Well, it doesn’t look like you’re going anywhere anytime soon so, no. I’m not alone. I’ve got you.”

Castiel pondered that, before smiling. ‘I suppose you’re right. Please continue.” 

Dean smiled too, and did as he was told.

***

Dean and Castiel’s relationship became symbiotic.

Cas began appearing more and more often, and doing a lot less creepy things like messing with the lights. Especially in the last month, it seemed like he was a lot more in control of what he was able to do.

Dean had to admit, he kind of liked having the ghost around. He hadn’t even realized how lonely he might have been without Cas to talk to.

 

The store had just received a shipment of large flowering plants in giant pots, and Dean had no where in the store to keep them. They had kind of been a gamble anyway, but he was willing to try and sell them if he could just figure out… oh, hey. He had an attic, right?

Hefting one of the pots up the stairs, he pulled on the attic string until the ladder folded downwards and he could climb up. He coughed as dust fell down, and heaved the giant pot up the ladder best he could. It was an awkward climb, but he managed to get the plant to the top of the attic.

However, when he set the heavy plant down on the old wooden floor, it indented and caused the other side of the board to stick up out of the flooring.

What the--

Dean walked over and inspected the small gap. Hesitantly, he reached out and peeled back the board.

It was just like in the movies.

Just beneath the flooring was a book, covered in dust and cobwebs.

Dean reached down and pulled it out, gently brushing away the excess dirt. It was bound in black leather and had no title that he could see. Just a plain black book. Carefully, so as not rip anything apart, he flipped open the cover. His heart nearly stopped when he read the title page.

 _Castiel Novak_  was written in thin ink, just below the word  _Journal_.

This was it. It had to be. This was the link that was keeping Castiel tied to the store.

And tied to this life.

For a moment he was elated. The book was everything that Castiel had been looking for. He was finally free!

Then Dean’s heart caught up with his thoughts, and he realized what that would mean.

Cas could go.

All Dean would have to do is burn the book and Cas would be gone forever. That’s what Cas would want, right? To be able to move on?

But what if that’s not what Dean wanted?

What if he wanted to be selfish and hide the book away again? He could go on like he had never found it, and pretend none of this had happened. Cas could continue to be with him for as long as he wanted. They still had one last chapter left of Harry Potter, after all.

But Dean had never been selfish in his life.

***

“Hey Cas?” Dean’s voice cracked as he walked back down into the main section of the flower shop. “Cas, I need to talk to you.”

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean turned around and forced a smile on his face. “Hey. I, uh… was up in the attic, and I think I… found something of yours.”

He slowly held out the journal with a shaky hand. “It has your name on it.”

The confused look on Castiel’s face changed into one of awe, and then elation. 

“Dean! You found it! Yes!” Castiel attempted to grab it, but of course his hands went right through it. “I don’t even know what to say. Of course. Anna hid it from me when I teased her about her wedding night.” Cas was laughing and causing the lights to flicker.

Dean couldn’t help but feel guilty at how much Cas’s joy cut into his heart.

“I’m free, Dean. I can finally leave.” Castiel grinned at Dean, and finally seemed to note that Dean looked less than enthusiastic at the prospect. “Oh.”

“It’s fine, Cas,” he forced a smile. “I’m happy for you.”

“Dean… you’ve been very good to me. Good  _for_ me.” Castiel reached out a vaguely transparent hand as he he was going to touch Dean’s face, but stopped just shy of his goal. “I appreciate all that you’ve done. And now you’ve found the book and… I don’t belong here.”

“You could,” Dean whispered. “You could stay and belong for a long time.”

Castiel smiled sadly. “I’m not happy here, Dean. I’m only half aware of myself most of the time. I feel the other side calling to me constantly and it’s like I’m being torn in two. I need to move on.”

The hand holding the journal shook even more.

“Please, Dean. Burn it for me?”

Dean nodded slowly. “Can we finish the last chapter?’ he asked softly.

Castiel’s smile turned happier. “Of course. I’d like to hear how it ends before I go.”

 

Reading the last chapter was one of hardest things Dean ever had to do. He took as much time as he could, reading the words slowly and with extra care, but even that eventually came to an end.

“Thank you, Dean,” Castiel said, when Dean’s words slowly trailed off, and he could tell Cas wasn’t only thanking him for reading the book.

“You’re welcome. I guess this is goodbye, then?”

Castiel nodded. “Please take it and burn it.”

“I will.” Dean opened the door and with the book tucked under one arm, he locked the flower shop behind him.

 

That night his metal trashcan doubled as a funeral pyre.

 

A flower arrangement of lavender, sunflowers and baby’s breath appeared on the doorstep of Anna Milton the next day, with a note that said  _In Memory of Castiel._


End file.
